


You Might Thank Me

by just_a_dram



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Polyamory, Polygamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 21:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15649071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_a_dram/pseuds/just_a_dram
Summary: As much as Dany does not want there to be discord in their marriages, Jon fears the growth of it even more. Making Sansa unhappy sits like a rock in his gut. He vowed to himself to protect her from grief, not cause it.





	You Might Thank Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mswyrr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mswyrr/gifts).



> Written in thanks for making a donation to fight Nazis. Prompt: genuine poly love.

Dany rolls over onto her stomach with a heavy, contented sigh. Or perchance he only thinks it is contentment, for when she turns her attention on him again, Jon can sense something is amiss. It is betrayed by the slight narrowing of her eyes and the delicate downturn of her mouth, which always precedes her telling him he could have done better. He doesn’t resent lessons from his wife, but they do not often follow so close to being inside her, so her look of disappointment causes a greater tightening of his chest than usual.

“Sansa was unhappy tonight.”

Jon knew this. He wasn’t cognizant that anyone else knew, however. Sometimes he wonders whether he is the only one to see Sansa’s moods lurking behind the smiles and measured speech. Not even the rest of the family left to them fully understands her. Arya more often than not misinterprets her sister and Bran sees everything but what is right before him.

Propping himself on his side, he runs a hand down the length of his wife’s spine, bare to where the furs drape her hips. “You saw it then?”

“She does well to mask it, but I think I know her well enough now to tell when she is pretending.”

Jon suspects Dany will need more than a few moons sharing a castle with Sansa to unearth all her secrets. His former sister is guarded and could find work in a mummer’s show, should she ever see fit to employ her skills beyond the world of diplomacy and court society.

Being less circumspect, his face must betray his disbelief, for she raises her brows at him as she pillows her cheek on her hands. “At least tonight at table I could see very plainly that she was unhappy. With you, I’m afraid.”

Jon’s slow exploration of the soft curves of her lower back stops. “Me?”

He was aware of Sansa’s mood. She chatted merrily with the lady to her left and laughed at the entertainment, but she also avoided his gaze and pretended not to hear Dany’s inducement for Sansa to play the lap harp for them. It was clear as day that something was wrong. For all of his congratulating himself on seeing through her act, it did not occur to him that he could be the cause of her discontentment.

He raises his hand to his bed rumpled hair. He and Sansa have not argued. Not in some time. Not since before they were wed. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Yes, Jon, and I won’t have discord. It can’t be that way betwixt us.”

“Sansa won’t be pleased to hear you are disallowing her being angry with me,” he says with a prod of her rounded hip. “She doesn’t much like commands.”

Her cool glare makes him instantly regret his teasing.

“Fix this, or I shall be cross with you as well.”

Daenerys’ wrath is truly a fearsome thing. The edge creeping into her voice is only a taste of what she can unleash.

He argued against this arrangement precisely for this reason. Wedding Sansa, Queen of the North and acting Lady of Winterfell, might have forged stronger ties with the North. With Jon’s parentage revealed, it might have helped prevent the lesser kings from feeling as if they are once more ruled by Targaryen outsiders. It also invited the potential for great unpleasantness in his existing marriage, a complication he did not welcome.

And for that matter, whoever his father was, Sansa was raised as his sister. Proposing marriage to Sansa complicated things not only with his wife, but with his sister as well—the first family restored to him how many name days ago at the Wall. Or at least, he feared it would spoil things, until they were wed and whatever differences they had melted into the night air.

They should be forever in a state of acute awkwardness, being forced to live as husband and wife, but instead, the tension that sometimes made him breathe fast in her presence has a different outlet. Then again, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise how easily he fell into his new role as Sansa’s husband. After all, he argued against the match, but not with all that much forcefulness. Nothing he sustained for long at least.

Things are good between Sansa and Jon. Or so he thought.

As much as Dany does not want there to be discord in their marriages, Jon fears the growth of it even more. Making Sansa unhappy sits like a rock in his gut. He vowed to himself to protect her from grief, not cause it.

He rubs his chin, unease crawling along his flesh. “What have I done do you think?”

Her eyes skim his face. “You treat her differently than me.”

He shakes his head. “I always seek her opinion. In Council, privately. I value her counsel as much as I do yours.”

Indeed, as the Queen does not always understand the people of Westeros, Sansa’s counsel is often the wiser course.

“That isn’t what I meant. You treat her, for instance, at table tonight, as if she is your wife purely as a result of political maneuvering. There is outwardly a difference in affection there. A practiced distinction that I know you are aware of as keenly as she is. Deny it.”

”Why should I?” Jon sits up, dragging the furs with him. “It _is_ a political match—one _you_ proposed.”

She hides her face in her pillow for a moment, partially obscuring the sound she makes before flopping onto her back. “You are always so eager to point out that I am the one who suggested you marry Sansa.”

He looks over his shoulder at her with a grimace. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, and you might thank me for it anytime. It made good sense for a great multitude of reasons, including that you were always mooning after her.”

“ _Mooning_?”

Dany laughs, her chin tipping up towards the ceiling, irritation swinging into mirth. The action does delightful things to her breasts, and he feels a tug that wars with his annoyance. “Quite. You’re a Targaryen,” she says with a bite of her lower lip. “The blood tells, I fear.”

“She’s my cousin.”

She casts her eyes at the red silk pleats of their canopied bed. “Yes, Jon. When it suits you to say it, she is your cousin. And she is also your wife. So surely now that you are wed, we can dispense with being concerned about what people think of you for being _fond_ of her.”

Jon sits, watching her, weighing whether he ought to say anything or simply put this discussion to bed by blowing out the candle. But her stare dares him to remain silent. Dany has a way of making him brave.

“I do practice a distinction, for I want to be,” he searches for the word, as he settles back in the furs. “Respectful,” he finishes, as her hand finds his. She threads her fingers between his, squeezing.

He loves Sansa.

Though he loves them both, there is a difference in how he feels about his wives. With Sansa there is a familiarity that ought to preclude what he feels for her. Instead, it is the foundation of everything. It doesn’t consume him in the same way he feels consumed by Dany, but where one love burns, the other heals. When he is with her, he knows who he is, and it is not Aegon Targaryen. He knows who he is with her arms wrapped around his neck. He knows that Sansa is safe, when he can hear her breathing beside him, and that he’ll spend his life ensuring that she always will be. Purpose. Certainty. Whatever that love for Sansa is, he has allowed himself to feel it without apology since they were wed. Feel it and not question it, for it is a great comfort.

Sansa knows how he loves her, he thinks, though he finds the right words difficult to speak. However, he has attempted to keep the knowledge of it between them two. It has been a private thing.

Jealousy is ugly.

He can see the quirk of Dany’s mouth out of the corner of his eye. “Out of respect for me?”

His brow furrows. “Of course.”

“You are not a mincemeat pie to be carved up into pieces. I don’t need you to pretend to love her less so that I can think you love me more.”

Daenerys has lived a different life from him or Sansa. Seen the world through different eyes. Reached different conclusions about love and the nature of the heart. For that he indeed might thank her, for it offered him the opportunity to do the same and without which there would be no Sansa and Jon.

“Yes, I’d rather not be subject to division by knife,” he says, drawing their linked hands up to his chest.

“No, I’d think not.”

“Consider this,” she says, curling in close and bumping his shoulder with her nose. “People will talk about your unnatural affection for your sister turned wife or they will talk about how you prefer one wife over the other. There will be talk regardless. Talk that eventually will reach our ears. Which do you think will bother our Sansa more?”

Jon isn’t sure, and perhaps, it is something he ought to try to speak to Sansa about. It will mean overcoming his usual speechlessness once they are alone with the torches gone out and furs drawn back.

“Although, knowing how Sansa excels at guessing how our actions will affect court opinion, her only concern might be for how you’re squandering any goodwill you earned through marrying Ned Stark's daughter by treating her with such an obvious disparity. Your Northern men won’t like it.”

Her tone is playful, but there is no doubt a sliver of truth to that assessment too.

“All right. I’ll speak with Sansa. I’ll make amends,” he says with a kiss to her knuckles.

Dany moves their hands over his heart and lets her finger spread wide over the scars there. “I trust the safety of my place in your heart.”

She has no reason to worry. It has been a revelation to him, but she is right: he simply loves more now, not less.

“Nor her place in your heart,” she adds. “And I’m glad of it, for I love you both.”

His chest expands beneath her touch. There is much to thank Daenerys for. But especially that.


End file.
